Chapter 64: The Hayloft’s Echoes

Alice held the lantern, watching Camilla silently, a smile gracing her lips.

“Alice? What are you just standing there for?” Camilla blinked, confusion clouding her eyes.

With that same smile, Alice turned and walked away.

“Where are you going? Alice? Don’t leave! Can’t you see me here? Alice!!” Camilla scrambled desperately towards the cell door, struggling to reach out from within.

However, Alice, enveloped by the lantern’s glow, continued to recede into the darkness, never looking back.

Camilla was left alone, her frantic cries for help echoing in the gloom.

“Alice!!!”

Camilla cried out, jolting awake with a gasp. She was breathing heavily, her chest heaving.

“A dream?” The realization finally dawned on her.

‘Ha! Thank goodness!’

Released from the terrifying nightmare, she sighed with relief, as if escaping death itself. A smile involuntarily bloomed on her face.

Yet, her smile quickly vanished.

She discovered her hands were bound behind her back, rendering her immobile.

“What’s happening?” She struggled fruitlessly, then scanned her surroundings.

To her astonishment, she was not in the carriage at all. Instead, she had been moved to a hayloft, filled with moldy straw.

A single lantern in the distance offered a meager light, revealing her hands tied to a wooden pillar, leaving her utterly helpless.

A hayloft?

The scene vaguely stirred a memory, but now was not the time to dwell on it.

“Alice?” she cried out in terror.

Damn it! Wasn’t she supposed to be in the carriage with Alice? How had she woken up in this dreadful place?

Had they encountered bandits on the road? Was she knocked unconscious in her sleep and brought here? Or was she still dreaming?

For a moment, the possibility that Alice herself had tied her here flickered through her mind. However, she dismissed it almost immediately.

At this very moment, Alice was her only anchor, her sole lifeline. Admitting such a possibility would shatter her spirit completely.

People instinctively ignore the most desperate and unacceptable possibilities, avoiding deep contemplation. It is a protective mechanism of the mind.

Just then, in her peripheral vision, she caught sight of a figure in the hayloft’s only window.

She flinched, then snapped her head around to look.

Against the night sky, Alice stood outside the window, holding a lantern and an umbrella, smiling as she watched Camilla.

“Alice! Come save me!” she cried out, overjoyed.

Alice merely smiled, watching her in silence.

“Alice? What are you just standing there for?” Camilla questioned, a hint of confusion in her voice.

The words had barely left her lips when she realized, with a jolt, that she had uttered the exact same line as in her dream.

“Alice? Don’t just stand there! Say something!” Her voice was on the verge of tears.

An inexplicable dread began to rise within her, for she felt that Alice’s expression seemed to be savoring her current predicament.

Then, Alice finally spoke.

“This is a trial,” Alice said, before stepping away from the window and moving towards the door.

Camilla froze. She had certainly hoped Alice would hurry in to save her, but what did Alice’s baffling words mean?

Alice’s cryptic monologue continued, her slow footsteps echoing through the wall and reaching Camilla’s ears: “I believe this is a trial to overcome fate.”

Camilla was utterly bewildered.

‘What are you babbling about, Alice? Why aren’t you worried about me, rushing in to save me? Don’t scare me like this. Right now… you’re all I have left to rely on!’

“Only by triumphing over the despair inflicted by one’s enemy can one taste the sweetness of revenge,” Alice said slowly.

Camilla’s eyes widened. As Alice spoke, her voice had suddenly deepened, and by the latter half of the sentence, it had transformed into a man’s voice entirely.

Even more inexplicably… she recognized that voice!

Yes, that was right. Once upon a time, in a hayloft much like this one, she had set a malicious trap for a certain boy…

“Alice” finally reached the door.

With a soft ‘click,’ “she” unlatched the bolt and pushed the door open.

Stepping into Camilla’s view was the figure of Levi, dressed in a black formal robe.

“You think so too, don’t you, Camilla Dumpty?”

Levi spoke softly as he entered the hayloft, a smile identical to Alice’s gracing his face.

In that moment, Camilla’s thoughts stalled, unable to comprehend the reality before her.

Then, an immense terror seized her.

“You’re… you’re…” she stammered, squeezing out sounds from her throat, then shrieked in horror, “You’re Levi!? Th-this is impossible! How could you still be alive!!”

‘Levi? That poor boy from the slums should have died long ago in that prisoner riot, shouldn’t he? Why is he here? How is this possible, how is this possible, how is this possible!?’

She stared at Levi in terror, as if he were a vengeful ghost.

“Alice! Where are you? Help me, Alice!!” Camilla could no longer think clearly; she could only frantically cry for help.

“Still unable to accept reality?” Levi chuckled, a hint of helplessness in his voice. He then set down the lantern, covered his face with his hand, and slowly wiped upwards.

As he performed this motion, his face and form once again shifted into that of the witch. His hair lengthened under his fingers, and the witch’s gown he wore transformed once more, reverting from a masculine robe to a feminine skirt.

In a mere few seconds, he had changed back into Alice. During the duration of the gender-bending potion’s effect, “he” could freely manipulate “his” gender and appearance.

“Are you calling for me, my dear Camilla?” Alice leaned in, bringing her smiling face close for Camilla to confirm, and spoke in a sweet voice.

At this moment, Camilla’s fear finally reached its peak.

For the last pillar supporting her mind, named Alice, had not only collapsed but had transformed into a sharp blade, plunging directly into the vital core of her spirit.

“Ah, ahhh…” She shook her head gently, a dull sound escaping her throat.

This sound then gradually lengthened, ultimately transforming into an uncontrolled shriek.

She thrashed wildly with unprecedented force, desperately trying to bang her head against the pillar behind her.

If this was a nightmare, she wished to wake up immediately.

Alice merely watched Camilla’s breakdown, carefully savoring her despair.

Everything was just as the Duchess had said: instill hope in the target, then personally destroy it, and the deepest despair would be created.

This was the ending that the Duchess’s script had presented to her.

Excellent. Then, this play of revenge shall be concluded by her, the avenger, herself!

She waited calmly, watching Camilla exhaust her strength in her frenzy, her voice hoarse, until silence finally returned. Only then did Alice speak again:

“Are you ready? Then, let us formally begin the reckoning of your sins, Camilla.”